The End
by Cat Ravenclaw
Summary: What if The Golden Tower had ended differently? My take on what should have happened. Calron hints.


Call closed his eyes and took a deep breath through his gag.

The sound of it startled him. His emotions were caught between relief that he was still alive, and terror because he knew he wouldn't be, if his plan didn't work.

And there was a high chance that his plan wouldn't work.

Unfortunately, himself possibly dying was just one of the terrible things that might happen if the plan failed. His friends, Tamara, and… well, he wouldn't consider Jasper or Kimiya a friend, but they were certainly worth saving- would die as well. And Aaron- God, Aaron. He hadn't even considered the fact that if he died, he'd be taking Aaron with him. Call felt his heart weigh like a boulder on his chest, wincing at just how much his friends had to sacrifice to get him here. That didn't even include his father, who had become a devoured of air to get him here.

Call swallowed, and with difficulty, brought his mind back to the present. His hands ached and itched when he rubbed them on his handcuffs. He guessed that the metal was starting to irritate his skin, the way it would if you wore a pair of earrings for too long. Call focused his energy on the mild itch, trying not to feel guilty.

_Call, don't be stupid. Alex killed me. It's his fault, not yours. And your dad? That was his choice. He wouldn't want you to feel guilty either. _Aaron told him. He said it in a firm way, almost like he was scolding a child, but Call smiled softly at the sound of his voice.

"You! Why are you smiling?" Alex snapped, jolting him back to the present. Call stared him down until Alex realized that Call had a gag over his mouth.

"For heaven's sake." Alex muttered, and walking up to Call, he reluctantly ripped off the cloth. As soon as it fell to the ground, Call put his hands up in the air the best he could with handcuffs, celebrating.

"I'm free!" he said, doing a tiny victory dance. Alex snarled.

"I forgot why I requested that you specifically be gagged." he remarked. On Alex's side, despite the situation, Kimiya fought hard against a smile.

"Hey, I get it, man. I would have done the same thing." Jasper commented, shrugging. Call pouted. Next to him, Tamara giggled. When he needed to avoid a question, Call did what Call did best. And that was being annoying.

"Call, this is why I'm killing you first." Alex said, and exited the room to find a suitable weapon.

Quickly and silently, all four prisoners broke their cuffs. Call dove his hand into his pocket, brought out the rock, and smashed it. Kimiya lit a match, summoning her devoured sister.

All of the elementals appeared.

"Face the door." Call said to them all.

"And prepare for a fight."

_Real good pep talk. You're a fantastic motivational speaker. I'm tearing up in here. _Aaron stated flatly, with snark so heavy, Call could almost see it.

_You're the one that's good with people. I'm good with… Dogs. Yeah. Havoc likes me. _Call replied, doing the mental equivalent of sticking his tongue out at Aaron. Aaron snorted, and Call could feel his smile more than anything else. At first, he shivered, because the burst of warmth in his head was a stark contrast to the cold of the tower around him. But before long, Call had drawn Miri, his knife, and was smiling too.

It made for a scary sight, four elementals and three mages, lead by Call. Call was very sure he was intimidating. So he was slightly offended when Alex walked back in the room, with a disturbingly sharp spear in hand, and laughed.

"So, you thought you could beat me?" He pronounced with a flourish. He opened his arms, his spear in his right hand, and bowed.

"So, you thought you could get away with quoting that one Captain America meme?" Call countered, just as confident. _Are you kidding me, Call? Seriously? _He could feel the facepalm that Aaron did, and Aaron's irritation pulsed off him in waves. _Yes. _Call replied. _Now shut up. I'm trying to do that one thing where the hero tricks the villain into reciting his whole plan so that we'll have an easy target. _If Aaron said anything after that, Call couldn't tell, because he blocked Aaron out. Call could still feel his general emotions, though, and the gist of it was a "Call, you suck."

Call's plan was going well so far, but it was so unreliable, it could be failed as easy as a math test.

Call was brought back to the present, where he realized that everybody was staring at him, and rightfully so. Call had just glazed over and gone slack in the middle of one of the most intense moments in mage history. The fight, not the joke.

"Idiots. I'm surrounded by idiots." Alex said in amazement.

"Sadly, you're late to the realization. I found that out years ago." Jasper deadpanned.

Call knew that this was the key moment. He let his eyes widen. He let fear for his friends and family seep into his gaze, into his body. He prayed that Alex would think the fear was of him.

"I…" Call looked around, tearing up for effect. "I was a fool to come here." he whispered. He turned back to Alex, making an expression of dismay visible on his face. Alex mechanically grinned.

"Yes you were." He announced. "You've made a fool of yourself, Callum Hunt. You overestimated what you could do. You see-"

He was abruptly cut off by Call screaming "NOW!"

The four elementals charged at Alex, hitting him with all of their force, all of their strength. As the four elementals hit Alex, Alex fought back desperately. The four elements mixed with chaos.

"Look away!" Call yelled to his friends. He got the feeling that no normal mage could look at it without causing damage to themselves.

The elements continued to swirl. They conjoined together, and in one large blast, Call and his friends were knocked back by a blinding light.

Call's blocking of Aaron broke. "NOW! Call, it's now or never!"

Call understood. He used the last of his energy, pushing Aaron out of his mind, and into the light shining in the room. It was horrible. It was like ripping out a part of his own soul. But Call continued. When Aaron left his soul, Call felt a part of is consciousness drift away, like how he'd felt when he'd had his blood drawn the first time. Just ten times worse. Call crumpled to the floor, one hand covering his eyes, the other outstretched.

Call must have momentarily passed out. He heard voices. Some excited, some worried. When he opened his eyes, he squinted in the light.

"Am I dead?" he muttered under his breath. He blinked hard a couple of times, and what he saw only increased his confusion. He saw his dad, normal again. He saw Kimiya and Tamara, teary-eyed, hugging a non-devoured Ravan.

"Call." His dad crushed him in a hug, and Call realized that he had been propped up against a fallen dining table.

"When we balanced out the chaos in Alex, he balance out us." His dad pulled away and beamed. "I'm normal again."

Call's heart pounded in shock, and he knew he wasn't hallucinating. He pulled his dad back in for another hug, clinging to him.

_Wait, where's Alex? _The thought struck Call like a bullet, and he quickly pulled away from his dad again and shot up. His feet wobbled ever so slightly, but he didn't care.

"Call! You need to sit back down!" his father urged him. "My friends from the mage war. The earth elemental and the water elemental? They've taken care of Alex."

This relaxed Call for a split second, before another panic attack was on its way.

_Where's Aaron? _Call felt a churning in his stomach. _Please say our plan worked. Please. _He prayed.

"Where's Aaron?" This time Call said it out loud. "We had a plan. A hypothesis. The soul and the body cannot exist separately, so maybe if we combined the six elements- Chaos, Water, Air, and Earth, with his soul- it would preserve his body, and let him live again."

Call turned back, and saw he was scaring his father. Alistair was ghostly pale. "Call, Aaron's dead. Gone. I thought we went over this!" he pleaded with his son.

Suddenly, a dark shadow appeared behind Call. Call turned, expecting Alex, expecting the worst.

But Aaron climbed out of the shadowy rip in the world. In all of his blond-haired, green-eyed _Aaron_ness, he was there. It was really him, this time. The whole Aaron.

Aaron was there, and he wasn't leaving Call ever again.


End file.
